99 Problems
by cutieflutie
Summary: After the suicide of her sister, Jade West and her father relocate to New York. There Jade is transferred to the gang-filled, dangerous, low test grade school Lincoln Memorial. There she meets Andre Harris- leader of the Black Blood gang. Jandre.


"Don't be mad, I took some pills."

The words still ring through Jade West's ears as it all floods in.

She remembers the crisp Tuesday, the way a gust of cold air followed her when she creaked open their deep red front door. It creaked. It always creaked. Whenever Jade or Callie would mention this, their father would wave his hand and say "You buy the door, I'll put it in."

She shoves it open, hard. She remembers the echo that rang from her voice as she left the "Callie, I'm home." Hang there. She also remembered the eerie silence that followed- save for the soft padding of cats' feet and the running of the fridge in the kitchen that had been croaking its last breath since May.

Present time Jade grips the leather handles in her Dad's Explorer. Her hands are paper white, fingers eternally cold to the bone.

Horrible thing is, she still feels it all. She feels the unease of her yelling out "Callie!" and the harsh contrast of sound as her boots clamber up the stairs.

She drops her bag. She knows that Callie is here. Jade had gotten a text from her, saying she had a ride home and Jade could go to look at the play auditions that she had been eyeing.

But the house is too quiet and she's confused.

She's about to assume Callie is asleep when she hears a faint running of water in the bathroom.

Jade drops her bags and turns the doorknob.

It's stuck. It just jiggles. She rolls her eyes and kicks it open. Privacy has never been her strongest point.

There's Callie.

She's pouring a glass of water down the drain, moving strange. She moves loosely and wobbly.

Jade's eyes fly to the dark orange tube with a sheet of paper covering half of it, the white cap a strew somewhere.

The words come out slowly, painstakingly calm.

"Don't be mad, I took some pills."

And the rest is history.

Now Jade West sits in her dad's dark grey SUV with the a/c up too high and the music too loud in her headphones. What her dad doesn't know though, is that she doesn't have punk or rock on, instead she has an array of Disney soundtracks, reminding her of how she and Callie could watch those movies for hours.

Now, her dad is relocating them to an apartment in Lower East New York. It will be a nice change, he says. Your mother would have loved New York, he says. Her kind of people, he says.

Only, Jade doesn't know if this is true at all, because she has no memory whatsoever of her dead mother. She doesn't remember the soft caresses, warm breaths, sweet whispers. Nor does she remember being in the car with her mother when they swerved on ice and went headfirst into a bridge. She doesn't remember the car being flipped and hung upside down. And she sure as hell doesn't remember the radio blaring endlessly until the ambulance arrived.

As a result of the accident, Jade doesn't remember a lot.

Sometimes she forgets the names of states, of TV shows, of utensils, of animals. And ever since Callie died, she's starting to slowly forget her whole childhood.

Doctors say it's the head injury she got from the accident. They said a four-year-old can't compartmentalize with that much trauma.

Jade just says she wants to forget.

And now, in order to do that, she's chopped her long light brown hair to under her ears and colored dark chocolate.

Instead of wearing dark colors with vampire make-up, she wears loose t-shirts and her face clear of it. Callie would have wanted it that way. Maybe her mom would have, too.

"Sunshine," her dad says her ironic nickname with sadness. 'Perk up. You'll love New York, all the sights."

"Los Angeles had sights, too." She wants to reply back smartly, but they've already crossed state boundaries and what good would it do now?

So she sits, arms faded across her chest, blue-green eyes set on the passing trees.

"Yeah, dad." Jade relents. "Super fun." She picks at her already cracked and short nails.

"Jade baby, be happy. Because you might not like this next piece of news." Her dad's face is set on the road ahead, not even trying to give her a hint of what he's about to say.

Jade turns from the window to face him and her eyebrows knit together. "What is it?" she asks cautiously. She can afford to be more cautious these days.

"I've enrolled you in Lincoln Memorial High School."

The words are a shock.

She's read so much about this horrible school. How many gangs there are, how many stabbings and gangs and low test scores and people who could jump a skinny white girl like her.

Her mouth is dropped down in surprise. How could her father think that it would be safe to enroll her there? She was all he had left! And he was all _she _had left, she didn't want to get murdered on the first day- a trio of West girls deaths.

She shuddered at the though. Too far. Too far even in her head.

"Oh come on Jade- you'll love it. Your mother's kind of people."

She shakes her head- already lost in her own head again.

_Don't be mad, I took some pills._


End file.
